Matt Hoy
Former vocalist for UB40 (Featuring Ali Campbell)
Matt Hoy was born and raised in Birmingham, UK and he’s been a musician all his life. In the 80’s when the band UB40 attained major success with a number of hits, he of course was in awe of them – because they too are from Birmingham, UK and they’d become known as “The Beatles of Birmingham” amongst the locals. So, it was like a dream come true when, in 2010, Matt joined the latest iteration of the band, and toured with them for almost 12 years, where he had the pleasure of singing “Red Red Wine” nearly every night to sold out venues around the world.
But in 2021, Matt Hoy was rather unjustly dismissed from the job he loved simply for not having the Covid-19 vaccine, (even though the band and management company knew he was unable to receive it) due to a medical condition! Sadly, They’d made it mandatory for all members of the band to be injected, while completely ignoring the Disability section of the UK’s Equality Act, and they also ignored Matt’s individual medical reasons for not partaking. Undaunted, this hasn’t slowed Matt down at all. He continues to perform as a solo artist and now, he speaks wherever he can to tell his story of what happened, and what we can all do to make sure that what happened to him, never happens again… to anyone.
Since being forced to leave the band (via text message, no less), Matt has made it his life’s mission to make people aware of the dangers vaccination, and also the very real impacts it has had on people’s lives, since so many were forced to abandon careers in the same way Matt was. His empathy especially goes out to all the home and health care workers, nurses, doctors, pharmacists, and medical staff who stood their ground and not only said no to it, but also and more importantly, refused to administer it, on an unsuspecting population.